The third edition of Parda Faash, which is Asia Society India Centre’s annual festival of independent cinema from and about South Asia, is ongoing in Mumbai. Last evening, it saw the screening of director Taira Malaney’s feature length documentary Turtle Water, which is co-produced by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti’s Tiger Baby. The screening was attended by Bollywood Hungama.

EXCLUSIVE: Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti’s Tiger Baby came on board Turtle Walker after the team ran out of funding, reveals DoP Krish Makhija at Parda Faash 3.0

The film is a deep exploration of the life of sea turtle conservationist Satish Bhaskar and his efforts in studying the sea creatures from the late 1970s till almost the end of his life in 2023. Its director of photography Krish Makhija, post the screening, shared how Zoya and Reema came on board after being asked about it by this writer.

Makhija said, “The film started out completely independently with Taira essentially self-funding the project. It was very time sensitive also that we needed to go out and shoot. So, we started filming and shot significant chunks of it until we were ready to move into post-production. But that’s when we essentially ran out of our funding.”

He continued, “At that time, our producer Nikita attended a workshop called Producer Land, which is like a producer residency that happens. And over there, there were also two producers from Tiger Baby, who were present. They heard the pitch for the project and they were really interested. So, they took the pitch to Zoya and Reema, who really liked the project. So, they decided to come on board as co-producers. They put in some funding to help us then complete the post-production of the project. Of course, along with that, they were also there as sort of mentors and advisors on the edit and story point of view as well.”

Yesterday, Parda Faash 3.0 also saw the screening of Indian filmmaker Anuparna Roy’s globally acclaimed Songs Of Forgotten Trees. The festival will culminate today with the screening of Trineby Rai’s Shape Of Momo.

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Tags : Asia Society India Centre, Bollywood, Bollywood Features, Documentary, Features, Parda Faash 3.0, Parda Faash Festival, Reema Kagti, Satish Bhaskar, Sea Turtles, Taira Malaney, Tiger Baby, Turtle Walker, Zoya Akhtar